


There for each other

by Qwerty1



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25782352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwerty1/pseuds/Qwerty1
Summary: There´s this unspoken understanding among the Hargreeves children, that the lower numbers are the favorites. That´s why Klaus is horrified when Allison reveals the true horror of her "training" sessions to him. And years later, when that training causes her to have a panic attack, he is there to help her
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	There for each other

After being released from the mausoleum, like so many times before, Klaus immediately goes up to his room and starts digging through everything, in search for his latest stash point. He is still shaking violently, and he is so occupied with what he is doing he didn´t think about not leaving the door open. He doesn´t notice Allison peeking in, not until she addresses him.  
“Klaus? What-? What happened to you?”  
He ends up sitting on the middle of the floor, tears suddenly spilling over, hands still shaking. Allison walks over to him, in quiet determination, and sits down next to him. He is suddenly leaning against her, and she silently places her hand over his.  
“Was dad mean?” she asks, carefully, without looking at him.  
“You´re gonna need to be more specific, sis. Dad is always mean.”  
“Did dad hurt you?” the question, her obvious concern, hits him hard, and he sniffs and wipes his eyes.  
She has always been sweet to him, even if it´s just such a thing as doing his make-up past bedtime out of sight of their judgemental father, asking him if he is doing okay if he is very quiet after a mission, or letting him vent and cry against her at moments where he misses Five especially bad. He inhales deeply. Five used to be the only one knowing the specifics of his individual training, since he would blink into the mausoleum and help him cope. But Five is gone now, so he might as well tell someone else. That someone might as well be Allison, who is always being so kind to him. He inhales again.

“Dad keeps me locked in that old mausoleum, you know the one. He says I should get over my fears, or some shit”, he confesses.  
Allison flinches at that, turning to face him.  
“Shit”, she breaths.  
“That is correct. Not that I would expect the golden child Number Three to understand, your training is probably-”  
She tenses up, violently shaking her head.  
“Stop. Don´t”, she says in a tense voice.  
Klaus makes a suprised noise.  
“What?” he questions.  
Allison sighs, sadly and angrily.  
“Dad makes me tell people to hurt themselves”, she huffs out.  
Klaus stares at her. She continues.  
“People who has never done anything bad in their lives. He brings me in to the training room with them, and he… He tells me to… To make them hurt themselves. Badly so.”

She has been trying to keep a brave face and a tough voice, but by the end her voice cracks and her eyes still fill up with tears. Something in Klaus aches badly. He was always the compassionate, caring one, the one who is willing to ignore his own hurt to help others with theirs. It´s hard, to hear and watch his beloved sister cry like this, and he wraps her up in a soft embrace. She sniffs, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her uniform.  
“I´m sorry, Allison, I´m so sorry you had to do that”, he whispers.

Many years later, the adult Allison Hargreeves is moving through the mansion, happily singing a tune she heard on the radio under her breath. She is excited, cause today is Vanya´s first concert, and of course all the siblings have gotten themselves front row tickets. She can´t wait to be there, to show her support and love, especially after all the shit this family has been through lately. Things are finally a little calmer, so much so that they can focus on being a family. Even her mandatory therapy sessions are going better, after she starts seeing them as opportunities rather than chores. She twirls, so the skirt of her new dress moves along in the movement, giggling, coming to a stop by the kitchen.

The breath that leaves her sounds so much like a sob.

The knife on the table is the first thing nine year old Allison sees as her dad ushers her into the training room, shutting the doors behind them. The second thing she sees is the man huddled in the corner, crying.  
“Please, don´t do this”, the man begs.  
“Dad?” Allison asks, fear in her small voice.  
“We are gonna try something new today, Number Three. I think you are ready to test your powers against resistance”, Reginald tells her.  
Allison doesn´t understand what that means, she looks over at the man, feeling sad that he seems scared. Reginald leads her into the center of the room.  
“See this knife, yes?” he asks her.  
She nods, feeling more and more scared. Reginald points at the man in the corner.  
“Make him use it to hurt himself”, Reginald tells her.

Allison immediately bursts into tears. Both in the traumatic memory and in the kitchen, her knees now having given out and she ends up on the floor, trying to breath through the heavy, terrified sobs. She remembers everything so clearly, still to this day. She refused at first, begging her dad not to hurt this poor man, but Reginald had slapped her, hard, only repeating the command. Her voice had come out in desperate sobs, and she had squeezed her eyes shut when the rumoring was done, refusing to look and crying apologizes over and over. She remembers the cries of the man, unable to stop himself from doing what Allison´s mind control power had made him do. She remembers she was in such a hysteric state Reginald had to carry her out of the training room, dropping her off into her bedroom, harshly letting her know how she will never live up to her potential if she keeps crying like a baby instead of doing her job. She is still sobbing, on the kitchen floor, the memory and the panic that comes with it replaying in her mind over and over, without being able to stop it, not being able to escape the panic in any way.

The sound of running feet and her brother´s frantic voice suddenly cuts through the panic.  
“Allison! Allison! You are okay, you are okay, it´s okay. It´s okay, come here.”  
She welcomes the hug greatly, leaning into it and grabbing at his shirt as she sobs. Klaus holds her as she cries, and she can tell that he knows what is happening.  
“I´m sorry, I´m sorry, I´m sorry”, she sobs, over and over, her face buried in the bright color of Klaus´ shirt.  
She can feel him shake his head.  
“Not your fault. Not. Your. Fault. You hear me? No, no, Allison, look at me. It was not your fault. You were a child. A young, manipulated child, and you couldn´t have done anything different. Dad was a royal arse, to put it mildly, but he is gone and no one is ever going to make you do anything again. You´ll never have to hurt anyone again.”  
She inhales shakily, wiping at her cheeks and eyes. It´s slowly getting easier to breath, and she can feel the panic releasing its grip on her. She finds the strength to lift her head, to look up at Klaus. She almost expects to see judgement there, having been so conditioned to needing to be the strong one, but all she sees in Klaus´ face is a deep, worrying sadness.  
“It´s not your fault. It´s okay, it´s okay. You are alright, you are safe”, he whispers.

Allison finds herself nodding, in a tiny movement, swallowing. She takes another, shaky breath. She´s feeling better, and she carefully detaches herself from the hug in order to sit up better, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. Klaus stays there by her side, on the kitchen floor, and she is honestly very grateful for that. She waits another moment before she rises to her feet, slowly and carefully, standing up to look directly at the knife. Her stomach starts filling up with anxiety again, but she takes a step forward, grabs it and puts it back in the knife block with a quick, determined movement. Klaus observes her, silently.  
“Did the knife upset you?” he asks carefully.  
She turns to him, nodding, breathing deeply.  
“Yes, it...”, she starts.  
“No, you don´t need to explain why. I can talk to the others, ask them not to leave knifes laying like that”, he tells her, wrapping her in another hug.  
“Thank you”, she breathes.  
“Of course, sis.”

They step back from the hug, Allison sniffling. Klaus looks her over, as if getting an idea.  
“We need to do something about your make-up, girl”, he tells her, but his voice is soft and light, without a single hint of judgement.  
Allison finds herself smiling, understanding what he is talking about: as teens they always used to do each other´s make-up, something that became a bit of a routine they used to deal with the reality of living in this specific house, with Reginald as their father. She nods.  
“If I get to paint your nails”, she says, her smile growing.  
“With glitter?” Klaus asks, the atmosphere slowly morphing into one of softness and excitement as he grins at her.  
“Glitter it is.”

They share one last, quick embrace before exiting the kitchen, heading up the stairs.


End file.
